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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Roach is not like other science writers. She doesn't write about genes or black holes or Schrödinger's cat. Instead, she ventures out to the fringes of science, where the oddballs ponder how cadavers decay (in her debut, Stiff) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (in Spook). Now she explores the sexiest subject of all: sex, and such questions as, what is an orgasm? How is it possible for paraplegics to have them? What does woman want, and can a man give it to her if her clitoris is too far from her vagina? At times the narrative feels insubstantial and digressive (how much do you need to know about inseminating sows?), but Roach's ever-present eye and ear for the absurd and her loopy sense of humor make her a delectable guide through this unesteemed scientific outback. The payoff comes with subjects like female orgasm (yes, it's complicated), and characters like Ahmed Shafik, who defies Cairo's religious repressiveness to conduct his sex research. Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
The study of sexual physiology what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey s attic.Mary Roach, the funniest science writer in the country (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn t Viagra help women or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Down and Dirty Look at Sex Research and Human Anatomy,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Bonk (Hardcover)
If you want to learn more about arousal and fertility, you'll find some nuggets in Bonk. But information about human sexuality isn't the focus of this book which is a really about the difficulties of learning about human sexuality.
The barriers to knowledge include peculiar ideas based on nothing more than speculation, lack of technology to see inside the body, and prejudice against research into sexual relationships. In fact, to find out about how some of the techniques, Ms. Roach had to become a subject (including one time when she and her husband had to become the subjects . . . having marital relations in an MRI machine). There are places in the book where you need a strong stomach to stick with the writing. I was vaguely reminded of the books based on the Darwin Awards at time, except the humor isn't as good here. If you find reading about sexual relations easier if there are lots of funny animal stories and humor about research, you'll probably like this book better than I did. The information content (independent of the humor) could have been contained in a book about 25 percent of the length of this one.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating,
By christinaj (Washinton State) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bonk (Hardcover)
Ms. Roach writes with light, fun to read, self-deprecating humor as she describes the absurd situations she finds herself in while researching this book. Bonk reads like Erma Bombeck meets Doctor Ruth, with content both graphic and educational, and despite the title, not titilating.
This isn't to say this book is for everyone. Sexual and surgical descriptions are not for the squeamish. Men might want either protective gear or liquid courage before reading the chapters describing surgical treatments for ED. Bonk is for anyone curious about the challenges and the discoveries involved in the research and study of human sexuality. She asks the question: how do scientists answer questions about the biology and psychology of sex, without being tarred and feathered as incurrable perverts? The short answer seems to be, very carefully. And often not successfully. Her wide ranging curiosity pulls together data and first person interviews and observations from a variety of sources. If textbook writers had Ms. Roach's gift for storytelling, teachers might find more students doing their assigned reading.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good fun,
By C. J. Thompson "Arctic John" (Pond Inlet, Nunavut Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Bonk (Paperback)
I have to think that Mary Roach would probably be a great guest at dinner parties... In this book, Ms Roach has again taken an offbeat subject (sexual research) and presented various aspects of it in an interesting and witty way. I don't often get belly-laughs from my reading material but did from this one. To those reviewers who have criticized the lack of substance or the nature of the humor, I have to say 'get some perspective!' Ms Roach has not set out to write a scholarly treatise. She has written to entertain in the same light-hearted, 'fun' way she has approached other subjects. In my opinion she has succeeded very well.
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